Helen Attewell, Chief Executive of Nepacs, a voluntary sector organisation working with prisoners and their families in the North East blogs about the fragmentation of joined up working with young adults and the need for a whole system response.

Clinks and Nepacs recently hosted a couple of round table events in Newcastle.  One session presented an inspirational vision from Max Rutherford of the Barrow Cadbury Trust and Jackie Lowthian of Social Justice Solutions on how young adults within the criminal justice system could be better supported in their transition to adulthood.

Much of the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) discussion was spent regretting the erosion of the strong working relationships between local Youth Offending Services and Probation Trusts which had formerly facilitated ‘warm handovers’ of young people into adult services.  There were some particularly striking examples of multi-agency good practice through the Integrated Offender Management teams. However, much of this work has now been fragmented through the creation of privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and their separation from the National Probation Service (NPS).

It was pointed out that we need more join up, not less, since many of those young people who have committed crime have multiple issues to contend with – poverty, mental health, family breakdown, substance misuse problems and homelessness.  A strategic focus on young adults seems the best way to target scant resources on the cohort of people who not only are committing most crime, but are also at high risk of reoffending and potentially about to embark on a lifetime career in crime.  It seems that England and Wales are almost unique in defining 18 year olds as ‘adults’.  In most other European countries, adulthood in criminal justice terms is 21, and it is acknowledged that maturity rates can vary between individuals.

Staff on the ground are doing their best to keep ‘joined up’ between juvenile and adult systems, but we questioned who might give the strategic lead on this issue within the North East region?  Was it NOMS, YJB, Local Criminal Justice Boards or Community Safety Partnerships?  The consensus was that Police and Crime Commissioners were best placed to champion this agenda as a way of minimising new entrants to the system as well as reducing reoffending and potentially creating fewer victims. Let’s hope we can persuade them to take up the challenge!

The session on the Taylor Review celebrated the successes of the Youth Offending Services in contributing towards a steep drop in the number of children in custody.  Prevention is always better than cure, and investment in a range of diversionary activities and services which address the root causes of the problem rather than criminalising young people will have a huge pay off in terms of reductions in cost to the public purse as well as less human misery.

Where children have committed crimes which are so severe that a custodial sentence is deemed necessary, the group welcomed the notion of smaller, more locally-based establishments with a focus on education.  How ironic then, to discover that although the juvenile estate might become more specialised, there are proposals to abolish the Young Offenders Institutions (YOIs) which currently hold 18-21 year olds, and absorb those prisoners into adult jails.   Yet these are the people identified as needing extra help through their transition to adulthood.

This proposal would be a particular loss for the North East, where although HMYOI Deerbolt is subject to many of the challenges faced across the prison estate (reductions in staffing, unpredictable legal highs etc.) it remains a beacon of good practice.  Successes include the work of the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Team (DART) and the work on diversity, including support for young people from travelling backgrounds.  Nepacs has pioneered family support at the jail over the past five years, developing parenting courses, special family visits, work with new fathers, and recently establishing a ‘Dads and Dads to be’ wing, where family becomes the focus of the collective identity of the residents, rather than ‘drug user’ or ‘gang member’.  This ground breaking needs-led work funded by the Big Lottery has provided opportunities for transformative change for many young individuals, who might be completely lost within a big Category B local jail.

My take home message was that we need to submit evidence to the Select Committee on Young Adult Offenders to make sure that a bad situation for young adults in prison isn’t made much worse.  A stark reminder of how important it is to get this right was the report that there has been a sudden sharp rise in the number of self-inflicted deaths of young people in adult jails in recent months.  Colleagues at Deerbolt reported that although none of the young people in their care had killed themselves, sadly, there were a number of instances where this had happened when they were transferred into the adult estate.

It was also pointed out that if young offenders are treated as adults at age 18, then why are they not entitled to the same levels of housing benefits, Job Seeker’s Allowance and Minimum Wage as adults?  So many contradictory policies and such high levels of need.

The Howard League for Penal Reform welcomes the opportunity to engage in Lord Harris’ review. The review is a unique opportunity for expert scrutiny of systemic failings in the penal system that have culminated in the tragic deaths of so many young adults in custody.

This inquiry is the only opportunity to examine the wider context surrounding young adults in prison. Inquests and inquiries have hitherto only considered their treatment in prison that immediately led to death but no one has asked the critical question about whether they should have been in prison in the first place. From the inquest and inquiry into the murder of Zahid Mubarek to the death of Greg Revell a couple of weeks ago, the question about the remand and sentencing decisions and practices of the courts need to be questioned as a contributory factor that led directly murder and suicide. Far too many young men are remanded and sentenced to prison unnecessarily and unless an independent inquiry looks at the route into custody as well as the treatment whilst inside, the problem will not be solved and lives will continue to be lost.

The Howard League for Penal Reform believes that there are too many young adults in prison who should not be there at all. The crime rate continues to fall. While the child custody population has fallen by two-thirds since 2008, there has only been a minimal fall in the number of young adults in prison. It is critical that we build on the successes for children across the system by ensuring that a different approach is taken for young adults from the first point of contact with the police to sentencing.

Summary of submission

Many young adults face avoidable problems in prison that may increase the likelihood of suicide. Despite claims from the Ministry of Justice as to the need for prisoners to make use of their time, most young adults are cooped up for excessive periods of time each day with nothing to do. The inadequate provision of meaningful or, indeed, any activity at all for this group is exacerbated by the hopelessness caused by the new incentives and privileges regime. The scheme, introduced in November 2013, makes it impossible for most prisoners to be rewarded for good behaviour or motivation. Others are paralysed by violence, racism, homophobia and insufficient interventions to meet their needs or allow them to progress in prison.

The Howard League for Penal Reform has identified a number of warning signs that we believe should trigger anxious scrutiny of a young person’s well being. When young people with mental health problems, learning difficulties, histories of abuse and victimization are sent to prison the authorities should not use segregation but should make sure that young people benefit from monitoring and support for their own safety. The caseload of our legal team shows that too many vulnerable teenagers are subjected to adjudications and physical interventions in prison. When the state takes a young person into its care, it must adhere to the highest standards to protect and safeguard them and to enable them to flourish.

Finally, we believe that even where young people’s needs and concerns are known, the current system is inadequate. Disciplinary processes are used inappropriately to deal with issues of profound concern. Measures to monitor risk of self-harm are not sensitive or tailored to the needs of individuals and are not meaningful. Safeguarding procedures for young adults are virtually non-existent.

You can read the full submission here

The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) is an independent UK charity working to create a just, humane and
effective prison system. We do this by inquiring into the workings of the system; informing
prisoners, staff and the wider public; and by influencing Parliament, government and officials
towards reform.

The Prison Reform Trust’s main objectives are:

• Reducing unnecessary imprisonment and promoting community solutions to crime
• Improving treatment and conditions for prisoners and their families

PRT welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to this review and have chosen to respond only to those questions on which we have some expertise but also submit our response to the Ministry of Justice consultation Transforming management of young adults of custody as supplementary evidence to the Review team. As a member of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A) convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Prison Reform Trust is pleased to support T2As submission to this Review.

Overarching comments

Whilst PRT appreciate that the remit of this Review has been set externally, PRT wish to
reiterate that the exclusion of children from its parameters presents a missed opportunity,
not least because many of the young people aged 18-24 who have died in prison will spend
time in custody as children. PRT urge the Review team to ensure that the impact of transition
from youth to adult custodial estate is considered as part of it work.

PRT strongly recommend that the ambit of the Review is sufficiently wide to consider the
journey into custody taken by children and young people who have died. A focus on prison
alone will result in only a partial understanding of what happened to them and what needs to
change. As Fatally flawed’s analysis of the deaths of 98 children and young people who died
between 2003 and 2010 showed, they were some of the most disadvantaged in society and
had had significant interaction with public services and community agencies before their entry
to prison.

It is in everyone’s interests to learn the lessons from the deaths of children and young people in prison and prevent such tragedies wherever possible in the future

You can read the full PRT response here

OPPORTUNITY: Help develop guidance on young adults

Clinks is developing guidance for probation practitioners on working with young adults, on behalf of the Transitions to Adulthood Alliance. We are looking for projects to visit that exemplify good practice and creative, effective approaches to working with young adults on probation licence.

Visits will take place between September and November 2014 and will involve meeting frontline workers and service users, to find out what makes the service effective.

We are inviting statutory, voluntary or private sector services to submit an expression of interest form by Friday 15^th August 2014, and we will then select a small number of projects to visit.

For more information download the form here.